


DNR

by eucatastrophe__x



Series: Love Lives, And Will Live Forever [1]
Category: The Hobbit RPF
Genre: Afterlife, Alternate Universe, Anal Sex, Friends to Lovers, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, I'll just keep adding tags as I think of them, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-09
Updated: 2015-08-09
Packaged: 2018-04-13 18:26:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4532571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eucatastrophe__x/pseuds/eucatastrophe__x
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three hundred and sixty-five days after his world caved in permanently, Lee got a new tattoo.</p>
<p>Another one thousand, four hundred and seventy-nine days later, he discovered that doing so was the best decision he’d ever made.</p>
            </blockquote>





	DNR

Three hundred and sixty-five days after his world caved in permanently, Lee got a new tattoo.

It wasn’t the first, by any means – no, that had come about two hundred and eighty-something days previously.

It had spanned the length of his left inner forearm, and he liked to think it was tasteful: three initials, two dates, and a quote in Latin. He’d spent several weeks of sleepless nights agonising over the wording until he’d found something so perfect, so fitting, that he’d gone out the next day and had it done before he could second-guess himself any more.

_Love lives, and will live forever._

Every time he looked at it, he smiled – in sadness, it had to be said, but at least it was a smile.

It hadn’t been hard to sell the idea to the tattoo artist – especially since he’d blurted out the whole story the first time they’d met, using his still-fragile state to justify wasting an hour of a stranger’s time – and they’d both been thrilled with how it had turned out.

This second tattoo, however, the artist had been much less keen on.

“Come back in a year,” he’d told Lee the first time he walked into the studio, three hundred and sixty-five days previously, unshaven and unwashed and emanating an emotion so terrible that it was practically visible, an ominous black cloud hovering above his head. “There’s no way I’m doing it when you’re like this. You need to calm down, man. Really think about it. But not today.”

He’d gone back and apologised, a week later, but the tattoo artist (Craig, he’d eventually discovered) waved him off. “No worries, man. We’re used to it. Get all sorts coming in drunk, high, dumped, want all sorts of shit done on the spur of the moment. You were pretty easy to convince compared to some of the characters we’ve had in the past.”

“But I still need you to do it,” Lee insisted, “I mean it. I’m not going to change my mind.”

Craig had sighed, shaking his head a little, and beckoned him towards the appointment book on the counter and making a note in the back. “It was Thursday, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Lee replied softly, knowing that the date would be permanently ingrained into his memory no matter how much he wanted to forget its catastrophic events.

“Okay – so that’s March 18 next year. Ten in the morning good for you? It won’t take that long – depends how big you want it.”

“Just big enough to serve its purpose.” Lee held out his thumb and index finger in an approximation.

“An inch or so, got it. And your name?”

“It’s Lee.”

He’d gone back in the interim, of course, to get the arm piece done. Craig had been much more receptive to some commemorative inking, and they’d spent a while bouncing ideas around – and he had loved the quote that Lee had found. He even took pictures of the final result for the collection that he showed to potential clients in the hope of triggering inspiration.

And, in the end, he hadn’t looked surprised at all when Lee walked through the door on 18 March the following year, spine straight and face grim and his whole body radiating determination.

“No chance you’ll let me make you wait another year?”

“None whatsoever,” Lee responded, making himself comfortable in the reclining chair and shedding his shirt, heart thudding in his chest with anticipation.

It was the simplest of designs, and it hadn’t taken much time, but even so, Craig insisted that he wait a couple of long days before taking the bandages off. When he finally stood in front of the bathroom mirror and eyed his new ink, he couldn’t help but smile (even if it was a twisted, bitter little thing that most people wouldn’t really characterise as a smile at all).

The tattoo was an investment. One day, it would pay off.

And then, of course, his gaze strayed to his first tattoo, as it was so prone to do every time his arm was visible.

But even after three hundred and sixty-seven days, the pain was as sudden and excruciating as it had been the first time he saw the yawning abyss of his new future spread out in front of him.

_RCA._

_Richard Crispin Armitage._

They’d had it so good.

Hell – it had been perfect.

They’d quite literally bumped into each other on Richard’s first day at the workplace they were about to share (not that Lee knew that fact at the time). He dropped his armful of papers more due to the surprise than the impact, but let Richard help him collect them up anyway. There were always clients strolling around their floor like they owned the place, so he didn’t think anything more of it (okay, _maybe_ he had spent a disproportionately long time thinking about that embarrassed little smile and those startlingly blue eyes and very, very sexy hands, and it was _possible_ that he had _considered_ asking around to see if anyone could identify him, just in case, but it wasn’t as if he’d _acted_ on it) until he looked up from his screen and there he was.

Again.

“Lee, this is Richard – the new hire I told you about on Friday,” Tom, his boss and the owner of the company, told him. “Richard, Lee.”

“Nice to meet you, Lee,” he said obligingly – Lee guessed he had been paraded around every other employee and introduced in much the same way and that it was starting to get a little bit old – and held out his hand to shake. But there was something about the way he smiled with his eyes and didn’t let go of Lee’s fingers for a millisecond longer than would have been appropriate that had made Lee wonder.

On Richard’s second day, he actively sought Lee out to wish him a good morning.

On the third day, Lee bought him coffee.

By the end of the first fortnight, they were firm friends.

At least, that was what they kept telling themselves.

They’d danced around each other for the better part of a year, sharing secret smiles and jokes and on the whole taking every opportunity to just be near each other. It became a running joke within the office – Lee even discovered (but was sworn to secrecy) that there was a covert betting ring in place: how long would it be before they got together?

He’d grinned and gone along with it – but privately, he’d thought that everyone who’d gambled on them was wasting their time. No matter how much he liked Richard, there was always going to be one thing standing in his way: he had decided, several years previously, that he would never shit on his own doorstep and date a colleague. He’d made the mistake once (an indiscretion who was three years older and had a very persuasive mouth, in more ways than one; a short-lived relationship which had ended in tears and a divided workplace and eventually Lee having to resign to get away from the toxicity) and concluded that he would never do so again.

Richard, however, was seriously testing his resolve – and with every smile it crumbled a little bit more.

As much as he liked Richard, he wouldn’t give in – or so he kept telling himself, anyway.

But then it all came to a head.

After the last day of work before the Christmas break, they went out for a raucous pre-holiday dinner at a restaurant a couple of blocks away that they all frequented during the day – whenever they had the opportunity for a proper lunch, rather than a quick sandwich stop at the bakery a block in the opposite direction. But because no one had bothered to make a booking, they were told (not quite apologetically) that they would have to spend some time waiting at the bar while the staff assembled seating for forty.

No one objected to that, especially once they found out the company was paying.

Lee had spent most of the evening with his team, catching Richard’s eye across the room periodically, and it was only after they’d finished the meal, all the employees spreading out across the half of the restaurant they’d claimed as their own, that he retreated into a corner to people-watch.

He wasn’t at all surprised when Richard joined him a few minutes later, cheeks flushed and eyes sparkling and champagne bottle in hand.

“Top up?” he offered with a smile, mirroring Lee and leaning against the wall, sloshing the wine into his glass. “Cheers, Lee.”

“Cheers,” he repeated, unable to take his eyes off Richard, who was radiating something happy and relaxed and so very lovely that Lee wanted to spend the rest of his life basking in it.

(Where had that thought come from?)

“Look at how shitfaced Logan is,” Richard snickered, and Lee couldn’t help but join in as they watched how unsteady the man in question was on his feet, “I don’t think he’s eaten anything the whole time we’ve been here.”

“You’d think he would have learned by now,” Lee commented, “but look at it this way – it’s only ten, and we already have a pretty clear winner for the ‘who can get the drunkest and make the biggest tit of themselves’ competition. All he can do from here on in is make his victory more emphatic.”

“Oh, no, I don’t think you can be that hasty – see, Angie could be catching up with him. I saw her and Gina doing shots before, and she seems well on her way to wasted.”

“Yeah, and Adam’s using it as an excuse to look down her shirt – look.”

They stood in amused, companionable silence for a few moments, before Richard drained his glass and spoke again. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Will you be gunning for an honourable mention in the competition?”

Lee laughed. “God, no. Stay out of the way and mock gently – you know that’s more my style. Why – are you?”

“I have an idea,” Richard said thoughtfully, “but I think it will be most effective if I act on it before I’ve had too much more to drink.”

“Intriguing,” he grinned, “so what’s stopping you?”

“Apparently – nothing.”

And before he could register what was happening, Richard had stepped towards him, pressed him back against the wall, rested both hands on his shoulders, and kissed him.

Lee wondered, in a very quiet and distant part of his mind, if this was what heaven felt like.

Somehow they fit together so perfectly, the kisses heady and exquisite, Richard’s nose brushing his cheek as his fingers fanned out over his shoulders and up his neck like he was trying to memorise him.

The little whimper that escaped him was entirely involuntary, and Richard sighed happily against his lips, his careful fingers cradling his jaw and coaxing it open so he could slip his tongue inside to nudge against Lee’s in a way that make his knees go weak.

It was everything he’d ever wanted, and yet –

Slowly, gently, wanting to savour the last few moments, he wrapped his fingers around Richard’s biceps and pushed him away.

(He was almost surprised to find, when he opened his eyes, that the world was still spinning on its axis – it felt as though everything should have ground to a halt the moment Richard kissed him. Even more astonishingly, no one in the restaurant appeared to have noticed them, tucked into their corner, at all.)

“No – don’t.”

Richard looked appalled, stepping out of Lee’s space hastily and rubbing one hand over his mouth and face in mortification. “Jesus, Lee, I’m so sorry, I thought –”

“I don’t get involved with co-workers,” Lee blurted, “personal rule, no indictment on you, honestly, it’s just – because – I don’t –”

Richard held up an authoritative hand, his forehead creased into a frown, and Lee stopped burbling (and tried, really hard, not to focus on Richard’s stupidly kissable – well-kissed, in fact – mouth as he talked).

“Let me get this straight: you won’t kiss me because we work together.”

“Yeah.”

“And if we didn’t work together – what then?”

The champagne had done a good job of removing Lee’s filter – and made him much braver than he would have been otherwise. “Then we wouldn’t be having this conversation, because I would have asked you out as soon as I met you, because you’re really fucking gorgeous and funny and kind and a thousand other adjectives and I’m so attracted to you that I find it hard to breathe when you’re around. And I really, really fucking want this, but – I can’t.”

“I see.”

Richard chewed his lip thoughtfully for several long seconds (probably, Lee thought, the most painfully awkward of his life) before something in his eyes cleared and a determined look appeared on his face.

“Excuse me for a moment, will you?”

Lee was the biggest idiot to ever walk the earth.

Somehow, he was hurtling towards sobriety – Richard’s measured reaction had taken the wind out of his sails somewhat – and all he wanted to do was go home and get into bed and pull the blankets over his head and pretend that the rest of the world didn’t exist and this evening had never happened.

He slumped against the wall, despondent, but unable to stop watching Richard as he moved purposefully towards the rest of the crowd – and tapped Tom, their boss, on the shoulder. The pair were close enough for Lee to hear the conversation – what one-sided conversation there was.

“I quit,” Richard told him with a blinding smile – the smile that, funnily enough, tended to be reserved for Lee and his best (worst) attempts at humour.

Lee’s jaw dropped in astonishment.

“I’ll come in over the break and clean out my desk. Amy’s got a good handle on the projects we’ve been working on – she’ll be able to take over in the interim, until you find someone new. It’s been great working for you, Tom – thank you for everything, and all the best.”

Tom just spluttered in confusion. “You – what – Richard – _why?”_

“I – well.” He intentionally caught Lee’s dumbstruck gaze. “I suppose you could say that a new opportunity has come up.”

He clapped Tom on the shoulder, skirted the pleading arm that he stretched out (Lee knew the spiel: more power, more money, one of my kidneys – what can I give you to make you stay?) and marched back towards Lee, who was still frozen in shock.

“Now,” he said, “your rule aside, since I think we’ve established it’s no longer relevant, I would very much like to take you out to dinner. And kiss you. Preferably not in that order.”

This time it was Lee’s turn to take the lead, curling one hand around the back of Richard’s neck and crashing their lips together, smiling into the kiss and savouring the rough rasp of Richard’s beard and the heated press of their chests and the way that his hands had found such a natural home on Lee’s waist and the small of his back.

Maybe he would regret this recklessness in the morning – hell, maybe they both would, and Richard had a lot more consequences to live with if that was the case – but somehow, he didn’t think that was going to happen.

Instead, he suspected he would spend the next several years – as he and Richard explored a relationship, built a world together – replaying this moment and deeming it one of the best of his life.

“There’s one more problem,” he murmured against Richard’s mouth, pressing another gentle kiss to his cupid’s bow before pulling away slightly and waiting for him to open his eyes. He did so unwillingly, slowly, like he was waking up from a good dream – and when he spoke, his voice sounded the same as he looked. “What’s that?”

“I’m going away for two weeks over Christmas, and I don’t think I can wait that long to take you on a proper date.”

“We could always just skip that part,” Richard suggested, voice low and smoky and a hint of a smile on his lips, and how had Lee not noticed before just how dark his eyes were?

But there was no way he was going to refuse an offer like that.

“How far is your apartment?”

“Ten minutes if we get one of those taxis across the road.”

They snuck out the restaurant’s rear exit, and no one saw them go (Lee was certain he would have known if they’d been spotted – the obnoxious drunken catcalls would have given it away). Someone would no doubt notice their absence eventually, but chances were that by the time they returned to work in January, everyone would have forgotten all about it. Then again, considering the betting ring, maybe it would be the hot gossip for weeks on end – but even if it was, he found that he couldn’t bring himself to care.

They held hands in the back seat, somehow refraining from ripping each other’s clothes off then and there despite the electricity that was crackling between them and the way that Lee’s heart was just about jumping out of his chest in anticipation. Thankfully, Richard’s apartment really wasn’t that far and the streets were quiet and it was only minutes before Lee was flinging all the money he had in his wallet at the driver, Richard laughing at him and lifting the bottle of champagne that he’d walked out of the restaurant with to his lips.

They held it together until Richard’s front door clicked shut behind them.

Neither of them would ever be able to say definitively who had made the first move, but somehow within the space of a second Lee had his back to the wall, both legs wrapped around Richard’s waist, and was kissing him like he was oxygen, hot and heavy and desperate and breathless, the slow rolls of Richard’s hips the most exquisite kind of torture as nearly a year’s worth of pent up wanting finally, blissfully, overwhelmed them both.

At least, it came very close to overwhelming Lee, whose brain had been silenced entirely and who was grinding mindlessly against Richard’s hips and who was perhaps alarmingly close to coming then and there (and god, what a beginning _that_ would have been).

“Slow down,” Richard gasped, “I’ve been wishing for this to happen ever since I met you, and I want to make it last.”

“Really?” Lee managed, once brain function had resumed enough for him to digest Richard’s words (the stilling of his hips had been fairly determinative). He knew how he felt about Richard – hell, how he’d always felt, even when he was trying his best not to feel at all – and he’d known that Richard enjoyed spending time with him, and maybe he was quite a flirt, and maybe he didn’t behave around anyone else like he did around Lee, but… “You never said.”

“Well, I’m saying it now – and I’d quite like to show you, too, if you don’t have any objections.”

“None at all,” Lee grinned, leaning into Richard’s embrace to kiss the jumping pulse in his neck, gratified by the way his whole body tensed in response, “so… want to show me the way to your bedroom?”

Richard did – quite badly, if the speed at which he got them there and removed all their clothes was anything to go by.

He tormented Lee for _hours,_ still clearly determined to draw things out, with deliberate presses of his fingers and a tongue that alternated between gentle flutters and deep, toe-curling caresses. By the time he finally conceded that Lee was ready, he was a quivering wreck, face buried in a pillow to muffle his begging moans, and at risk of passing out from overstimulation and sheer pleasure.

“Ready?” he asked, and it was a few seconds before Lee registered that Richard’s fingers weren’t inside him anymore – no, Richard was rolling on a condom and sitting on the edge of the bed and manipulating Lee’s heavy, uncooperative limbs until he was sitting astride him.

“I want you like this,” he breathed, hands grasping Lee’s hips and guiding him back down onto his cock, “is that okay?”

It was.

It very definitely was.

And the rhythm that he set up, hard and fast and sweaty and bed-shaking– that was okay (god, more than okay – exceptional) as well.

Until it stopped.

“Lee,” he gasped anxiously, deliberately slowing his pace until Lee looked at him in frustration. (At least, it would have been frustration, had this not been literally the best fuck of his life. Realistically, he didn’t think he could summon any negative emotion towards Richard at all.)

“Yeah?”

“I think I’m in love with you,” he blurted, the sweetness of the confession entirely at odds with how utterly debauched he looked: eyes wide and dark, hairline damp, cheeks flushed, skin hot and slippery with sweat. He grinned embarrassedly, leaning forward to bury his face in the crook of Lee’s neck. “God, you have no idea how good it feels to finally say that,” he marvelled, and Lee felt something euphoric unfold in his chest at the admission – hell, both admissions.

And if Richard could be that frank about how he felt, then Lee could do the same.

“Richard?”

“Yeah?” he echoed. His face was still hidden, but Lee could feel him smiling – he knew full well what was coming.

“I think I’m in the same boat… And I think I have been for a while.”

“Good.”

Their lips met in another desperate kiss, and this time, when Lee clawed at Richard’s shoulders and clenched around him and murmured muffled warnings into his mouth, he just thrust harder, increasing the angle between them, bracing himself against the bed with one hand and jerking Lee off with the other. They came together – a feat that Lee had never managed before; had never been quite in tune enough with another person’s body to get them both off in the same instant.

Somehow, Richard knew him that well already.

Lee liked it.

He liked it a lot.

He also liked how Richard tugged him into the shower afterwards, soaping him thoroughly, supporting his weight as his knees slowly buckled from exhaustion, and kissing him until he was practically a puddle on the floor. Once they’d depleted the hot water supply entirely, Richard dried him carefully, then coaxed him back into the bedroom. He piled all the pillows in a heap at the head of the bed, letting Lee flop down on them with a grateful groan, before climbing in and tucking himself into Lee’s embrace like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Maybe it was.

“So,” Lee said, slow and careful, “now what?”

“In terms of… this?”

Lee nodded, suddenly worrying – perhaps somewhat illogically – that he had misread the situation. (Mid-coitus proclamations of love aside – there was the smallest of chances that Richard was just the kind of guy to blurt things like that out during particularly spectacular sex.)

But he hadn’t, and Richard wasn’t.

“I just quit a great job to be with you,” Richard told him, almost sternly but with a smile in his eyes, “plus, I’m pretty sure that was the best sex I’ve ever had. So no, you’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

“Sounds good to me.”

And it was.

God, it was.

They had one thousand, nine hundred and fifteen perfect days together.

Richard found a new job mere days after the Christmas break was over – conveniently close enough to Lee’s work that they could meet for lunch dates, smiling obnoxiously at each other over their meals. They stayed over at each other’s apartments more than they slept apart, were practically inseparable on the weekends, and it was only a couple of months before Lee moved in officially. They met each other’s families, went on holidays together, and eventually bought a place of their own.

Just like Lee had imagined, that night that Richard had first kissed him, they built a world together – and it was the most deliriously happy of places.

And then, one Thursday morning in March, they ran out of milk.

“I’ll just be a minute,” Richard told him, pulling a ratty sweater over his head and leaning down to give Lee a kiss on the forehead, “and then I’ll make you some coffee and breakfast and bring it in to you. You keep that bed nice and warm for me, okay?”

Lee did.

But Richard never came back.

Lee was able to piece together what happened, based on the various accounts shared with him over the next few hours. Richard had walked into the shop and interrupted a robbery.

Carla (of course they knew her name – Lee’s exuberance and Richard’s charm meant that they had been on a first name basis practically since they moved into the apartment a block away) had been cowering behind the counter while the boy – he couldn’t be called a man, not really – had waved the gun at her, directing her to open the till and empty it into his bag.

She would have done so.

She would have let him leave.

But Richard – oh, Richard – would not.

Carla couldn’t remember exactly how things had gone down (and Lee couldn’t bring himself to try and force her to): whether Richard had drawn attention to himself intentionally, whether the boy had even noticed him before he tackled him in one flying leap. And Lee would discover, later still, after the arrest had been made, that he had never actually meant for the gun to go off: it was only ever intended to be a threat.

But – funnily enough – things didn’t go exactly as planned.

Because somewhere in the commotion the trigger was pulled and blood bloomed across the front of Richard’s sweater and there was a hole in his chest where there should only ever have been organ and muscle and bone but of course he was only concerned with making sure Carla was okay, even though he couldn’t move, and he held her hand and whispered soothing noises until he didn’t anymore.

And Lee dozed in bed, looking forward to his coffee and lazy spooning and heated kisses, until he heard the first wail of the sirens.

And somehow – before he was up, before he was dressed, before he was running down the street in the first clothes he could find on the floor and a severe case of bed head, before he saw anything – somehow, he knew.

The ambulance used its sirens on the way to the hospital, but Lee suspected it was more of a formality than anything, going by the cold limpness of the hand he was clutching and the terrifying grey stillness of Richard’s face. They sat Lee down in the waiting room on arrival but it was only a few minutes before a grim-faced doctor appeared to tell him that they’d done everything they could – which, in effect, was nothing, because Richard was all but dead before the ambulance even arrived.

And just like that, his whole world collapsed.

“Would you like to see him?” the doctor offered. Lee nodded shakily, taking the doctor’s proffered hand and standing before being overcome by a wave of nausea and vomiting all over both their shoes.

For some reason, that act wasn’t an automatic disqualifier, and they still let him in the little room where Richard was – where Richard’s _body_ was.

It was the most excruciating moment of Lee’s life.

From the chin up, at least, he looked entirely normal (save for the strange pallor of his skin). Lee couldn’t bring himself to pull back the sheet to see the carnage that had brought them here – instead, he carefully extracted Richard’s hand, lacing their fingers together and squeezing and trying desperately to believe that Richard was squeezing back.

He wasn’t.

He never would again.

At least Lee had given them the chance to be great together. For a fleeting moment, he imagined how his life would have gone if he’d pushed Richard away more forcefully the first time he’d kissed him, that wintry December night at the restaurant – or, hell, if he’d never let himself get into the situation where the kiss could have happened at all. He wouldn’t be hurting so much now, that was for sure – but he would never have experienced Richard’s unconditional, unwavering love and affection and, in retrospect, that wasn’t something he would have been willing to sacrifice for anything.

It was just that they were supposed to have _decades._

It wasn’t supposed to end like _this._

Shaking hands gripping Richard’s between them (so hard that he heard the joints click, an act that would normally have earned him the reproachful look that Richard had practically patented over the years), Lee bowed his head and sobbed like he would never stop.

The doctor had told him that he could take as long as he needed – but apparently there was a time limit, after all, because he had barely been in there for an hour when a nurse stuck her head in and said that they really needed the room and did he mind?

He did.

He really did.

But he couldn’t exactly say that.

“Right – of course,” he whispered hoarsely, “sorry.” He would have appreciated more than the brusque nod he received in return, and it would have been nice if she’d left him to say his final goodbye in private, rather than standing there and holding the door open impatiently, but who was he to complain? It wasn’t as if it was going to achieve anything important – not when the only important thing in his life was gone forever.

Lee stood and closed his eyes briefly, biting down on his lip to stop the fresh round of tears he could feel building behind them, and took what was intended to be a deep, steadying breath. When he checked again, some tiny illogical part of his brain hoping against hope that something would have changed, Richard’s face was just as blank as it had been when Lee had first entered the room.

No – he wasn’t going to wake up.

So he bent down, lovingly smoothing Richard’s hair back and pressing kisses to his forehead, nose and cold, unyielding lips for the last time. (It was regrettable to say the least that true love’s kiss didn’t work in real life the same way it did in the movies.)

“I love you,” he whispered, also for the last time, as the tears started again, and stumbled out of the room and out of the hospital before he could collapse again.

He couldn’t go home. The prospect of going back to their apartment, their little haven of domestic bliss, to find everything exactly as it has been before his life was ruined was too much to bear. Instead, he walked for hours: unthinking, unseeing, fat tears oozing down his cheeks sporadically and a dull throb in his chest that he was pretty sure would remain for the rest of his life – when his future stretched out in front of him, so dull and empty and miserable, suddenly devoid of Richard’s sparkling smile.

The morning already seemed like an eternity ago, a distant dream that he would never be able to recreate. He’d woken up happy and relaxed and in love (god, like he did every day) and now he was single and alone and he knew for certain that this pain was never going to go away.

Unless, of course, he helped it on its way, by ensuring that he’d never be able to feel anything ever again.

He stood on the overpass for what seemed like hours, staring at the steady stream of traffic beneath him. God, it would be so easy – he was tall enough to be able to get himself over the edge without a struggle, and if the impact didn’t kill him, one of the cars certainly would.

But no – he couldn’t. He knew Richard would never forgive him, and he didn’t want that on his conscience for all eternity.

So he kept walking.

He’d never felt quite so helpless in all his life.

He couldn’t kill himself, but he couldn’t go on living, either. There had to be something that he could do – something indirect, something that would ensure that when his time came (and hopefully that would be sooner rather than later), no one would try to claw him back.

Oh.

There _was_ something.

Maybe it was insane, maybe it wouldn’t work, but it was a start – and when his world was crumbling around him, a start was all he needed.

And somehow – Lee decided that it was a sign – just across the road, he spotted just the place he was looking for. He didn’t think twice, breaking into a run (a sense of purposefulness coursing through his veins) and hurling himself through the door to confront the man behind the front desk.

“I’d like a tattoo.”

Ethan, the boy who’d killed Richard – and how strange it was to even think that phrase – went to jail, of course. It had only taken the police an hour or so to track him down, and from what Lee understood he’d gone quietly, horrified tears staining his cheeks as he was cuffed and read his rights. He’d avoided the circus of a murder trial, opting to plead guilty to manslaughter as soon as the prosecution put the deal on the table. They hadn’t told Lee about it beforehand, which he considered unforgiveable – he’d wanted to punch the lawyer when he announced that a plea bargain had been offered, and that Ethan had accepted.

He would be eligible for parole in less than five years.

Five years – for Richard’s life.

It was so appalling it was almost funny.

Thankfully, he managed to refrain from laughing at the absurdity when he actually came face to face with Ethan himself.

It was the prosecutor who had suggested a restorative justice meeting of sorts, well before the plea bargain debacle. Lee sat on the idea for a week, but a week after that, he found himself across the table from a kid in a jumpsuit.

He had no idea what to say. 

Ethan, however, had no such qualms.

Apologies and explanations rolled off his tongue in a never-ending stream, but they washed over Lee, who sat there marvelling at just how _young_ he was. The incident – if he could call it that – had happened two weeks before Ethan’s twentieth birthday. He’d grown up in terrible circumstances – abusive father, drug addict mother – and it had surprised no one when he’d fallen into rough circles and petty crime. He’d managed to get off with fines and community-based sentences for his previous convictions, but manslaughter (especially manslaughter that should have been murder) was never going to have the same consequences as stealing a pair of shoes for his kid brother or beating up the guy who tried it on a little too enthusiastically with his sister.

Even as the flood of words continued, though, his eyes kept flickering down to Lee’s tattoo, half-visible under his pushed-up shirtsleeves. 

“Yes, I got it for him,” Lee said eventually, once Ethan had stopped to draw breath, and he flushed at being called out, “here.” He rolled up his sleeve the rest of the way and turned his arm towards Ethan, who frowned at the Latin. “What does that bit say?”

“’Love lives, and will live forever,’” he admitted softly, something twisting in his gut at sharing the details with the boy who was the reason that the tattoo was necessary in the first place. 

“Look, I’m sorry,” Ethan said, “I wish it hadn’t happened how it did. I made a mistake, and I’m going to spend the rest of my life paying for it.”

You are _not,_ Lee thought with a sudden burst of savageness, because you’ll be out of here in the blink of an eye and all this will be behind you, whereas I will live with it until I stop living altogether.

“And it’s really shit for you, I know, and there’s no way that I can make up for it. But I understand how you’re feeling, and –”

Lee just shook his head sadly. “No, you don’t. You cannot possibly understand.”

“But I do,” he blurted, “I – I dream about him every night.”

Lee squeezed the bridge of his nose, trying to curb the close-to-tears sensation that always came when he replayed his dreams in the cold light of day, regardless of whether said dreams had been good or bad. Last night had been a good one – roaming the streets of Paris hand in hand like the holiday they’d had there a couple of years into the relationship – but every sleep was a gamble, and it was always possible that he would wake up with a scream, sweat soaking the sheets, the image of a bleeding, pleading Richard reaching a feeble hand out for him imprinted on the backs of his eyelids.

“I can’t stop thinking about him,” Ethan continued, “just the same as you, and –”

“Please don’t do me the indignity of pretending we’re in the same boat here,” Lee interrupted, albeit softly. “Everything that happened has happened because of choices you made. You dictated this outcome – not me or Richard – and my life is destroyed, and his life is over, all because of you.”

The sudden silence stretched on between them for what felt like an eternity. Lee weighed his options: stay, walk out, speak, keep quiet – scream, cry, beat Ethan to a bloody pulp, watch the life leave his eyes – anything to just make him _see_ the effects of his actions, how he had irrevocably ruined Lee’s life because he wanted cash and cigarettes and status amongst his numbfuck group of friends.

“And for that, I could never possibly forgive you.”

And when he left the jail, he didn’t look back.

He went to the sentencing, sat in the public gallery, refused to make eye contact with anyone and just shook his head sadly and silently at the reporters who swarmed him afterwards, asking if he was happy with the outcome and did he think justice had been done?

Justice would never be done.

That was just the way the damn world worked.

Richard was gone – and, unfortunately, Lee’s life continued.

Waking up every day, getting out of bed and facing the world became the most impossible of tasks. He was weighed down by grief, like a backpack full of cement that he carried around with him everywhere, and he had to pour all his energy into looking and interacting and behaving like a normal, balanced person – while his thoughts were occupied almost exclusively by Richard.

There was the odd happy memory, of course, and those would increase as the years went on, but most of the time his brain just repeated its constant, flat refrain: Richard is dead, Richard is dead, Richard is dead.

And if he wasn’t agonising over that fact, he was replaying that terrible morning over and over in his mind, torturing himself and driving himself insane with the possibilities: what if he hadn’t drunk all the milk the night before? What if he hadn’t been too lazy to get up and had gone to the store himself? What if he’d insisted that Richard kiss him properly before he left? What if he’d pulled him back down and taken all his clothes off again and they’d spent another hour or so in bed, circumventing involvement in the robbery altogether?

_What if, what if, what if?_

He couldn’t bring himself to sell their apartment – it felt like it would be too final, like he was accepting that this chapter of his life was over (The Chapter In Which He Had Everything He Had Ever Wanted And Life Was Perfect) and moving on. As it was, the bed was too big without Richard, and he still only slept on the left hand side rather than sprawling across the whole thing. Richard’s toothbrush and razor stayed in their cup on the right side of the sink, his book on the bedside table still marked at the page he’d been up to, his clothes continued to fill his half of the wardrobe, and his favourite mug never got used but remained at the front of the cupboard anyway.

Sometimes it felt like he was just away for a work trip and would be back any day.

And then, inevitably, reality would come crashing back down, leaving Lee feeling more hollow every time.

He thought about suicide – god, every day, he fantasised about jumping off a bridge or running into traffic or slitting his wrists or downing all the painkillers and spirits he could get his hands on. (Buying a gun was an idea he considered for less than a second before dismissing it, disgusted with himself for letting it cross his mind at all.)

But he couldn’t do any of those things, because he felt like he would be letting Richard down.

Sometimes, in the particularly black moments, it almost felt like he was there with Lee. If he strained hard enough, he could summon Richard’s concerned expression, forehead creased in worry, the gentle tone he employed when Lee was upset, and sometimes even the phantom weight of his hand between Lee’s shoulder blades, warm and reassuring.

Then, of course, there were the times that he’d thought he was actually descending into madness – like the time that he woke up at midnight as the clock ticked over to Richard’s birthday to the faint sound of music wafting from the lounge into the bedroom But when he’d shot out of bed, legs uncoordinated and brain muzzy with sleep, and all but run into the lounge (crashing into the doorframe on his way) it was dark and silent and the stereo was resolutely off. 

That was the first instance, but by no means the last – and every time, the thought that he must be cracking up lingered in his mind a little longer.

Their friends worried about him – that much was painfully obvious. After the first couple of years, they started making noises about him putting himself back out there, even introducing him to and setting him up with other acquaintances. Lee appreciated the socialising (sometimes) but always conjured up a reason why a second date wouldn’t work. James had been the exception: he had made it to three or four, and Lee had actually felt himself relaxing in the man’s presence, even managing the odd tentative flirtatious comment from time to time. He swung between feeling pleased with himself for socialising and sick with betrayal for cheating on Richard. Everyone told him it wasn’t cheating until they were blue in the face, and as things progressed he wondered if he would be able to get past it – but then James kissed him, one night, and he’d had to push him away because it felt so utterly _wrong._

James had taken it well, of course (Lee knew from their dinner dates that he was a genuinely kind and wonderful person) but he couldn’t shake the guilt and disgust that plagued him for weeks afterwards.

It became abundantly clear that the only person he ever wanted – ever would want – to kiss and hold and love was Richard. And if he couldn’t have Richard, he couldn’t have anyone.

So he waited, and he lived – half-heartedly, it had to be said, but he lived. He still had one card up his sleeve (or, rather, branded onto his chest), after all. One day, it would prove its worth.

And one thousand, eight hundred and forty-four days after he’d first stormed into Craig’s shop and demanded the tattoo, it did just that.

It was a crisp morning – the kind where Lee’s breath still came out in visible, steamy puffs, but the sky was clear enough to make him think of the promise of summer, just around the corner.

The five year anniversary of Richard’s death had passed a couple of weeks previously. As had become tradition, Lee had locked himself in their apartment, turned his phone off, and spent the day getting drunk on bottles of the good pinot that Richard had always gone out of his way to source. He’d cried, of course – he’d always been a maudlin drunk – looked through all the pictures and videos he had of the two of them together, and wondered, as he always did: what if?

But that day – that day wasn’t quite so bad. The sun was shining, and he’d just finished a solo brunch at one of the cafes they used to frequent on Sunday mornings. He was wearing Richard’s pea coat – the one that fit him like a glove, somehow, and every so often when he put it on he would catch a phantom burst of Richard’s cologne that made him feel euphoric and devastated at the same time – and, as he tucked his headphones into his ears, one of Richard’s favourite songs started playing. It made him happy – even if it was tinged with melancholy – as he listened to the familiar tune and thought of relaxed weeknight evenings at home, their open-plan kitchen and living area lit only by the city itself and the free-standing lamp in the corner, slow dancing and sharing the kind of kisses that reminded them both that this was a love that would last forever.

Yes, on the whole, things seemed just a fraction brighter.

He turned the volume up as high as it would go, and smiled as he stepped out.

He didn’t hear the pre-emptive scream that sounded across the road: a woman who was paying much more attention to their surroundings than he was.

He didn’t see the car roaring down the street, ignoring the speed limit entirely and either not realising or not caring that there was a pedestrian crossing right there.

And he didn’t feel the impact.

It all seemed to happen in slow motion: he bounced off the hood of the car, landing on the road with a dull thud that seemed to reverberate in his head. He caught a glimpse of the driver’s horror-struck face through the window, but he didn’t stop – if anything, he drove off faster than he’d arrived.

And Lee lay there, blinking sluggishly up at the sun through half-open eyelids, the song continuing to play in his ears like the credits of a film as people swarmed around him, buzzing with disbelief and horror.

There was something warm and wet on the back of his head. He wanted to reach up to check (god, it would be just like him to land in dog shit or something of that ilk) but his arms were too heavy to move and it was easier to just stay still and let the people surrounding him do whatever they wanted.

But what they wanted, apparently, was something he wasn’t willing to give.

He felt someone remove the headphones from his ears and the beautiful music disappeared, replaced by frantic mumbling about his phone and emergency contacts. (They’d be looking a while, he thought idly, since he didn’t have one anymore.)

But, more pressingly, someone else was unbuttoning his shirt to get to his chest – and then they all froze.

It was several long seconds before anyone spoke.

“Oh, shit.”

He hadn’t been able to kill himself. This had been a compromise, of sorts: it would ensure that, should he ever be near to death, no one would try to stop the process. He would be able to run towards the light with outstretched arms, the sound of Richard’s voice and laugh ringing in his ears and his phantom embrace curling around Lee like a promise.

At least, that was how he’d always imagined it would happen.

And here he was – he hoped (god, surely it would be a medical miracle if he lived through this, going by the force of the impact of both the car and then the concrete of the road) and it was all about to come to fruition.

Three little letters – and they changed the game completely.

_DNR._

“I’m not sure he’s breathing,” someone said, holding a tentative hand over his nose and mouth to see if they could feel any exhales. But Lee was intentionally keeping his breaths shallow – almost non-existent – because there was a dull pain in his abdomen and what felt like something sharp in his chest that could well have been a broken rib, and every time he inhaled it stung a little more.

“Anyone done a first aid course?”

But the question fell into a pool of embarrassed silence – and Lee didn’t think he’d ever felt quite so grateful in his life.

The end was coming – finally.

He was dimly aware of the way that the woman closest to his head kept brushing her fingers through his hair. The rhythm was gentle and soothing and it made him think of the way that Richard used to play with it – god, any chance he got, really – but it didn’t distract him so much that he didn’t notice the frantic conversation going on above him.

“We have to do something – DNR or no, there’s no way I’m letting him die and then getting sued for not helping.”

“So… Are you any good at CPR?”

“Never done it before,” the man admitted, and Lee felt a surge of relief, “but surely – there’s got to be someone nearby? Isn’t there a doctor’s surgery a couple of blocks away?”

“I know the one you’re thinking of, but it’s definitely more than a couple of blocks and I don’t think they’re open every day. Maybe we should just wait.”

Lee had done his research before the inking – he’d had a year to mull it over, after all. He was very much aware that there was some dispute about whether a DNR tattoo technically had to be respected by paramedics, and that the majority’s view tended to be that it was safest to ignore it altogether.

But there were no paramedics with him now.

So all it had to do, when he was surrounded by members of the public who weren’t quite sure how they should be reacting, was buy him some time.

He didn’t need a lot.

He knew that much for certain.

So as long as the insistent man didn’t throw caution to the wind and start trying to push air into his lungs, exacerbating the pain he’d been carefully trying to avoid, he would be okay.

“You’re doing great, buddy,” the second man – the one who thought they should wait – told him reassuringly, “just a few more minutes. The ambulance will be here soon.”

_Soon._

Soon was not going to cut it, not with the leaden heaviness that Lee could feel spreading through his limbs. His fingers and hands felt strangely cold and numb, and no matter how much he tried to move them, they stayed resolutely still.

And he was so very, very tired.

Surely he could have a little doze, right there on the road, until the ambulance arrived? The prospect was extremely appealing – like those lazy afternoon sleeps on the couch under a warm blanket when it was pouring with rain (or, alternatively, stretched out on the grass with the sun beating down on his skin) that he loved so much.

“No, no, no, don’t close your eyes, stay with us,” the woman near his head pleaded, slapping his cheek with a little more force than he considered necessary. It was just going to be a little nap, after all.

He loved naps.

Just a short one. Just until the ambulance arrived.

The sticky wetness he was lying in had cooled unpleasantly – but he wasn’t going to focus on that. He could feel the sun warming his face, its brightness still visible through his eyelids, his whole body so very relaxed.

He would only sleep for a few minutes.

Honest.

When he opened his eyes again (and Christ, the weight of his eyelids, it was the most strenuous thing he’d ever done in his life), sure enough, the scene was stiller than it would have been had the ambulance turned up – but unlike before, a shadow was blocking the sun.

And then it moved.

And when Lee squinted, it came into focus.

He frowned with confusion, unable to believe what he was seeing and terrified to blink in case the vision disappeared – but the figure above him looked far too solid and animated to be anything but real.

“I can’t believe you got a tattoo,” Richard said, shaking his head fondly, one corner of his mouth turning upwards in that sheepish little smile that Lee had always loved so much.

He’d wondered, periodically, over the last several years, just how things would go when the end came – but god, this was better than he’d ever imagined.

“Hey – it did what it was meant to,” he managed, hoping desperately that this was something more than a temporary hallucination, “I mean – that’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Richard conceded, his eyes still flickering between Lee’s face, his exposed chest and the tail end of his forearm tattoo peeking out from the sleeve of his coat. “But… didn’t it hurt?”

“Not nearly as much as everything else.”

The crowd around him fell away as Richard leaned down and Lee reached for his hand automatically, discovering in the process that his were working again. It was warm, a comfortable and familiar weight, their fingers slotting together as they’d always done, and Richard idly stroking one knuckle with the tip of his index finger as he sighed.

“I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Lee told him, voicing a conclusion he’d reached a long time ago. “You couldn’t have known. Chivalrous to the end, though – I can’t say I was surprised. Not about that part, at least.”

“I should have just walked back out, called the police – Carla was going to give him the money, and he would have left without hurting her. I don’t know what I was thinking. I never wanted things to happen like they did – and I never wanted to leave you.”

“I know, baby,” he soothed, hoping he could coax that expression off Richard’s face, twisted in frustration and pain, “it’s okay.”

It wasn’t – Christ, it hadn’t been – but suddenly Richard was here with him again and all the agony and grief of the past five years had been washed away, replaced by that giddy euphoria that accompanied every smile that Richard had ever gifted him.

“I missed you so much,” he admitted – not that it would have come as a surprise to Richard – his free hand stretching to cup Richard’s cheek and jaw, savouring that familiar mix of soft skin and morning stubble that made him think of lazy weekends in bed, drinking tea and reading in companionable silence and dozing off sporadically as sunlight bathed the room. Richard just nodded, closing his eyes and leaning into the caress, nuzzling against Lee’s hand.

“I know, love. I’m here now.”

A relaxed silence followed those exquisitely reassuring words, Lee feeling more at peace than he had in years, and then –

“I see you’re still wearing my coat, by the way.”

“It smelled like you, in the beginning, and I could wrap myself in it and pretend you were holding me,” Lee confessed, before realising that he’d glossed over the most important word in that sentence.

No, not important – earth-shattering.

“Wait – what do you mean ‘still’?”

He’d never worn Richard’s coat before he died.

Richard knew that.

The first time he’d put it on was that catastrophic day, when he’d returned to the empty apartment that suddenly belonged only to him, and sobbed and screamed until he was hoarse and dehydrated and full of the knowledge that nothing would be okay ever again. When he’d slipped his arms into the coat and buried his nose in its neck, breathing in the smell of Richard’s cologne, the agony lessened ever so slightly and the tears grew a little quieter. He decided, in that moment, that he was going to hold onto the coat and wear it until it was worn out, taking another little piece of Richard with him everywhere he went.

But somehow, Richard knew that, too.

Lee just stared, blinking stupidly, as his brain struggled to connect the dots and understand exactly what he was saying.

But it couldn’t be.

And yet Richard was there, smiling gently down at him, and –

“You silly man,” he breathed, “did you really think I’d ever leave you?”

He hadn’t been imagining it.

The black nights when he’d thought he’d felt Richard’s warm embrace, chest pressed to his back; the mornings when he’d woken up with a smile at the sound of Richard bellowing tunelessly from the shower, only to realise that it was just his brain playing the cruellest of tricks on him; the thousands of other little moments that had made him stop and think twice because he was seeing or hearing or feeling something that just wasn’t there.

All those times over the last one thousand, eight hundred and forty-four days that he’d thought he was going insane.

It had been real.

It had all been real.

He felt a hot tear trickle out of the corner of each eye, sliding down to his ear, and managed a choked little sound that was a mixture of laugh and sob.

“You could have told me,” he managed, the words thick with emotion, “you could have said something to let me know you were there, that I wasn’t alone.”

“I did,” Richard told him earnestly, “I swear, Lee, every day. You just couldn’t hear me.”

That just made him cry harder, rolling onto his side and curling into himself as if to shield himself from the pain, the asphalt hot against his cheek. He let Richard stroke his hair anxiously (god, it had only been minutes since he’d been remembering fondly how he used to take every opportunity to touch his hair, and now he was here, in the – well, not the flesh, but something decidedly less substantial. Yet the steady, comforting caresses felt as good as they’d always done.)

“You’re the one who got it inked on your skin, after all – ‘love lives, and will live forever,’” Richard reminded him. “I love you, I always will, and I wasn’t going anywhere without you.”

“And what about now?”

“Now you’re coming with me. If you want to, I mean,” he added, looking doubtful for the first time, “it’s not compulsory.”

“That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

The wide beam he got from Richard in response dried his tears almost instantly.

He felt a strange tingling in his chest and along his arm as his tattoos faded away. When he touched his face, he was surprised to find that he was clean-shaven for the first time in years – since that day, in fact, because he’d been incapable of personal grooming or hygiene and anyway, he could press his fingertips to the coarse hair and think really hard and try to pretend that it was Richard’s face that he was caressing. Actually, his jaw and cheekbones were slightly less defined than he’d expected – than they’d been a few minutes previously – and he could feel the waistband of his trousers tightening slightly. He’d lost weight after Richard had died (apparently your boyfriend being shot and killed was an exceptionally good appetite suppressant) and never felt quite as comfortable in his skin as he had when he was twenty pounds heavier and delirious with love.

He was turning back into the person he’d been with Richard.

And Richard was watching the transformation, smiling expectantly down at him, and the whole world had narrowed to just the two of them.

Maybe that was how they were going to spend the rest of forever.

If it was – and Lee let himself hope, because why not? This whole experience had been so staggeringly surreal, after all – then he had no complaints whatsoever.

Dragging his eyes from Richard’s face for the first time since he’d appeared, he noticed that he was wearing the sweater he’d had on the day he died. “Yeah, I know,” Richard said drily, apparently still able to read his expression all too well, “if I’d known that I’d have to spend all eternity in it, I would have chosen something a bit more presentable.”

“You’re welcome to the coat, as long as you don’t mind the bloodstains – it’s yours, after all.”

“They’ll disappear too, you know. But no, you keep it. It suits you – always has.”

“Smooth talker,” Lee teased, amused to see that even now, he could still make Richard blush. “So… Where are we going?”

“Onwards.” Richard gave an uncertain little laugh. “I’m not entirely sure, to be honest.”

“But – it’s been years. How can you not know?”

“I was waiting for you,” he admitted with a bashful little smile.

“Well, here I am. So let’s figure this out together.”

Craig would be pleased – well, not pleased, exactly, but glad that Lee had got what he wanted in the end. He’d understood what the tattoo meant to Lee – what Richard meant to him. Lee wished there was some way to communicate with him, to let him know how things had ended and that he’d found Richard again.

“This part is a little strange,” Richard warned him, “so – ready?”

He nodded, letting Richard wrap his hands around his wrists and pull him into a standing position. He felt light – unnaturally so – and when he looked back down, he saw his body still lying on the road.

“Damn, I see what you mean.”

The crowd swam back into focus, the little group clustered around the body making way for two paramedics, who were desperately checking for a pulse that they were never going to find.

“Are you okay?” Richard checked, and Lee let out a slightly hysterical laugh. “No, I’m dead.”

“You can go back,” he said carefully, “if you’d rather. It’s your call.”

As if there was any other choice that Lee could make.

“Are you kidding? I’ve been waiting for this day to arrive since – well, you know when.”

“If you’re sure,” Richard said, almost sounding relieved as he smiled.

“Oh, believe me, I’m sure.”

He buttoned up his shirt and coat, noticing that the bloodstains had disappeared, just like Richard had said. When he looked up from his task, the street was bathed in an unnatural light, emanating from something bright enough to be a small sun in the direction that the car that had hit him had gone. He managed another laugh. “So, I guess we’re meant to go towards the light?”

Richard shrugged. “This didn’t happen when I died – it’s as new to me as it is to you. But yeah, if I had to hazard a guess – that’s what they say, isn’t it?”

He held out a hand for Lee, but he didn’t take it, instead grabbing Richard’s wrist and reeling him in until they were face to face, only inches apart. There was still some tiny terrified part of Lee that worried that he was going to wake up to find that this was all a cruel dream, that he was alive and Richard wasn’t and everything was going to continue much as it had for the last half-decade, but surely this situation was too insane for even his brain to conjure up?

“Don’t,” Richard murmured, clearly able to see the conflicting emotions all over his face, “it’s okay. I’m not going anywhere.” He pulled Lee into a hug, wrapping his arms around him just as he’d always done, and Lee buried his face in his neck and breathed deeply at the aching familiarity and the way that Richard felt warm and solid and _real._

No, there was no way he could be imagining this.

They spent several long minutes just standing there, locked in each other’s tight embrace, both unwilling to let go after so many years. Lee felt like the missing piece had slotted back into place – he was finally complete again, and it felt so _right._

And when Richard pulled back, cradling the base of Lee’s skull in his hands and then kissing him, everything felt even more right.

Their lips slanted together in their old rhythm, the one that came as naturally to Lee as breathing, and it was as though they’d never been apart at all. The soft warmth of Richard’s probing tongue contrasted nicely with the slightly abrasive rasp of his beard, and the kisses were sweet and perfect and it felt like the first time all over again.

But this time, Lee thought – as the kisses slowed, and he rested his forehead against Richard’s, grinning like an idiot – this time, they really would have forever.

For the first time in one thousand, eight hundred and forty-four days, he knew unequivocally that everything was going to be okay.

“Come on, love,” Richard said softly, “let’s go and see what’s waiting for us.”

And hand in hand, they walked towards the light and into their little piece of eternity.

**Author's Note:**

> Still not 100% sure where this came from - it sort of materialised in my head fully formed a few weeks ago but has taken a while to get down in its final form. Sorry about the length...! (We've talked before about me and "short" stories...)
> 
> I promise a return to happy fluffy things soon! BUT in the meantime this will have a companion piece (not a sequel - it's probably blazingly obvious what it will be about) so keep an eye out for that - though it's still likely to be a couple of weeks away. I know it's very poor taste to say but the number of comments I get on this is likely to directly correlate to how fast I can write it! So if you're interested in reading more, sing out :)
> 
> Also, since this appears to be The Done Thing, I have a tumblr (toutcequejesuispas) - basically just a collection of pictures of food and pretty things, but come say hi if you want!
> 
> Comments and kudos are very much appreciated :)
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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